Are “Healthy” Fast-Food Meals for Kids Really Healthy?

 An infographic from Online Schools showed one of the reasons; calories consumed. The average daily intake in Congo is 1,500 calories. In the U.S. that soars to 3,760.

GM Diet

Now the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has surveyed the children’s meals dubbed “healthy” by fast-food chains. They find what is offered to children “alarmingly high in fat, cholesterol, and sodium.”

General Motors Diet

In order of their contribution to childhood obesity, high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease and diabetes, PCRM has singled out the “Five Worst ‘Healthy’ Fast-Food Kids Meals.”

• In the top spot is Chick-fil-A, with its Grilled Nuggets Kids Meal. PCRM pronounces it the winner because it serves up as much cholesterol as a Big Mac.
• Second place goes to the McDonald’s Cheeseburger Happy Meal, which gives its young eaters “more sodium than 13 orders of McDonald’s kids fries.”
• Sonic Kids’ Jr. Burger Meal slides in third, with a children’s meal containing more sugar than two Twinkies.
• Burger King comes in fourth. In a contest between six slices of pork bacon and a Hamburger Kids Meal, the two are pretty well tied for cholesterol levels.
• Denny’s Build Your Own Jr. Grand Slam takes up the rear, topping the government’s recommended intake of sodium at breakfast by 100 milligrams.

Nothing in the report will be shocking news to those who spend any time checking out nutritional content of fast foods on the companies’ Web sites. What the PCRM study does is give parents a handy guide to some of the excesses that are part of even the “healthy” choices these companies market to children and their parents.

Fast-food chains continually battle attempts to regulate how and when they market to kids or how much of the big three — salt, fat and sugar — they pour into their processed foods. They meet any suggestions they might be contributing to obesity and diet-related diseases with righteous indignation.

On the other hand, pressure from the health sector and a more health-conscious public is nudging them slowly in healthier directions. So what is your take? Are you a consumer wanting to make more demands on the fast-food industry? Does your family dine in these chains several times a week or only occasionally? Are the “healthy” meals the chains offer to children really healthy? Does it matter?